© Getty Images

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? -

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers a surface area of roughly 1.6 million km2. That's nearly twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France!

© Shutterstock

What's in the patch? -

About 99% of everything in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is plastic. That equates to 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic present in 80,000 tons of garbage. Furthermore, 46% of the total mass is made of discarded fishing gear.

© Shutterstock

Microplastics -

Plastic is not biodegradable, meaning it does not disintegrate. Instead, it breaks down into tiny pieces known as microplastics.

© Getty Images

Larger pieces of plastic -

Keeping microplastics company are larger pieces of plastic. According to National Geographic, 80% of plastic in the ocean comes from land activities in North America and Asia.

© Getty Images

Fishing and agriculture to blame -

More specifically, a 2022 study undertaken by Scientific Reports and posted by the National Library of Medicine concluded that 75-86% of the plastic pollution is from fishing and agriculture, with most identified emissions originating from Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Taiwan.

© Shutterstock

Impact of marine debris -

The impact of marine debris is well documented. It can prevent algae and plankton, the photosynthetic producers in the marine food web, from receiving enough sunlight to create nutrients. This can threaten the entire food chain.

© Shutterstock

Devasting for wildlife -

Debris of this sort can also injure or kill marine and coastal wildlife. Entanglement, ingestion, suffocation, and general debilitation are all associated with plastic pollution.

© Getty Images

Underwater threat -

Turtles, for example, can easily become entangled in discarded fishing nets. Furthermore, they often mistake the gelatinous texture of plastic for a jellyfish, their preferred food.

© Shutterstock

Ghost fishing -

The hazards of ghost fishing, a phenomenon whereby discarded fishing nets continue to 'catch' marine life, is shown to cause an alarming mortality rate among crustaceans, sea birds, and marine mammals such as seals.

© Shutterstock

Harmful to reefs -

These discarded fishing nets are also harmful to coral reefs, the nylon web breaking corals, exposing them to disease, and even blocking the reefs from vital sunlight.

© Getty Images

Invisible pollution -

The term "garbage patch" is a tad misleading, making it sound like this is a large, continuous island of visible trash. In fact, much of the debris lies below the surface and is so microscopic it's invisible to the naked eye.

© Getty Images

More than one patch -

Even more confusing is the fact that there's more than one patch. Rotating Pacific Ocean currents known as gyres have created three 'islands' of debris: the Western Garbage Patch, Eastern Garbage Patch, and the Subtropical Convergence Zone (a calm, stable area of the ocean fed by two prevailing flows of water that meet and interact, trapping marine debris).

© Public Domain

The garbage is growing -

Beyond the Pacific region, additional garbage patches have been identified in areas where gyres are active, bodies of water that include the Indian Ocean and the North and South Atlantic. Worryingly, the Mediterranean and North seas are developing their own garbage patches.

© Shutterstock

Ocean Voyages Institute -

In response to the growing threat posed by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to the marine ecosystem, a number of initiatives have been launched to combat the accumulation of ocean debris. One of these enterprises is Ocean Voyages Institute (OVI).

© NL Beeld

Pioneering project -

Since 2009, OVI has been alerting the world to the dangers of ocean plastic.

© NL Beeld

Biggest-ever ocean cleanup -

In 2020, OVI completed the largest open-ocean cleanup in history—recovering, upcycling, recycling, and repurposing some 170 tons of plastics.

© NL Beeld

The terrible consequences -

Over the course of 48 days, an overwhelming amount of fishing gear, derelict ghost nets, and consumer plastics were recovered. Tangled in this trash were numerous dead fish and turtle skeletons.

© NL Beeld

Capturing toxic consumer plastics -

Mary Crowley, founder and executive director of OVI, commented at the time: "We exceeded our goal of capturing tons of toxic consumer plastics and derelict 'ghost' nets, and in these challenging times, we are continuing to help restore the health of our ocean, which influences our own health and the health of the planet. The oceans can't wait for these nets and debris to break down into microplastics which impair the ocean's ability to store carbon and toxify the fragile ocean food web."

© NL Beeld

Ocean Cleanup -

Another ambitious project established to rid the oceans of plastic waste is the environmental non-profit Ocean Cleanup. Founded by Boyan Slat in 2013, Ocean Cleanup's mission is to put itself out of business after removing 90% of ocean plastic by 2040.

© Getty Images

Pollution busting technology -

Boyan leads an organization actively clearing up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by designing and deploying cutting edge pollution busting technology. 

© NL Beeld

System 03 -

In August 2023, Ocean Cleanup debuted their System 03 method of harvesting plastic waste from the seas.

© NL Beeld

How System 03 works -

System 03 consists of a floating barrier approximately 1.4 miles (2.2 km) long, which is towed between two slow-moving vessels.

© NL Beeld

Dragging the ocean -

This barrier suspends a screen extending 13 feet (4 m) below the surface of the water, where most floating plastic is encountered. It's akin to dragging a huge lake.

© NL Beeld

Freeing up huge areas of trash -

System 03 is nearly three times larger than Ocean Cleanup's previous technology and capable of cleaning an area the size of a football field every five seconds.

© NL Beeld

Economical and sustainable -

System 03 operates on a simple principle—using bigger systems makes cleaning the ocean more economical.

© NL Beeld

Cleaner waters -

The Ocean Cleanup program has already removed hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic and aims to scale up to have a fleet of similar systems.

© NL Beeld

Intercepting trash -

Besides its ongoing work in the remote Pacific, Ocean Cleanup has also deployed Interceptors—automated solar-powered devices—in some of the world's most polluted rivers to prevent plastic reaching the ocean in the first place.

© Getty Images

This is what we can do -

Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program urges everybody to do more to protect the world's oceans and rivers by being more responsible about how they dispose of trash, both on land and in water.

© Getty Images

Reuse rather than dispose -

People are asked to reduce the amount of waste they produce, and to reuse items whenever possible. Choose reusable items over disposable ones.

© Getty Images

Recycling is the word -

And recycle as much as you can. Bags, bottles and caps, cans, cell phones, ink cartridges, and many other items can be recycled.

Sources: (Conservation International) (National Geographic) (The Ocean Cleanup) (Ocean Voyages Institute) (National Library of Medicine) (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

See also: Rethinking plastic recycling

© Shutterstock